S01.E09: Friends

[chitowngirl]

Matty helps Olympia take on Elijah's cousin's wrongful termination case; Edwin worries that the longer Matty remains at Jacobson Moore, the more she puts herself in danger of being caught.
 

Airdate January 30, 2025 on CBS

[AnimeMania]

[MerBearHou]

For these bright attorneys in NYC, I don’t get why Maddie and Olympia often slip into these super-Southern accents.  It is weird and distracting to me.  

Edited Yest. at 03:11 AM by MerBearHou

[ItCouldBeWorse]

53 minutes ago, MerBearHou said:

For these bright attorneys in NYC, I don’t get why Maddie and Olympia often slip into these super-Southern accents.  It is weird and distracting to me.  

Code switching.

[MerBearHou]

16 minutes ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Code switching.

Forgive me, but I don’t know what that is!

[ItCouldBeWorse]

3 minutes ago, MerBearHou said:

Forgive me, but I don’t know what that is!

https://www.britannica.com/topic/code-switching

Edited Yest. at 04:25 AM by ItCouldBeWorse

[ItCouldBeWorse]

13 minutes ago, MerBearHou said:

Forgive me, but I don’t know what that is!

From John McWhorter, a Columbia University linguist, which would apply to Olympia: "What people are hearing as Southern is Black English, with which white Southern English overlaps only partially. Black English has a great many traits alien to white Southern English." He discusses examples of non-Black people code-switching also.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/opinion/harris-code-switch.html

[MerBearHou]

@ItCouldBeWorse Thank you.  Interesting.

[Chicago Redshirt]

Glad to have the show back!

Loved the friendship between Olympia and Matty being in full bloom. Hate that Matty's willing to cross Olympia off the suspect list on vibes alone.

I hope the show does have Olympia be the culprit behind Wellbrexa. That would be fabulous and serve Matty right.

I'm confused about a few things.

1. Apparently Matty is now thinking that when she uncovers the truth about Wellbrexa, Jacobson Moore will just eat it because they don't want it to be public that a 75-year-old granny fooled them. First of all, that seems to be putting a lot of stock in their unwillingness to be embarrassed. But more importantly: if she isn't planning on publicly exposing their wrongdoing, what the hell is her plan? Blackmailing them? Some sort of confidential settlement?

2. Toward the end, Julian and Olympia essentially made a deal that the partnership committee will only pick one of them to stay with the firm as a partner and the other one has to go elsewhere. First, I was operating under the assumption that both already were partners. In the pilot episode, they were seated at the table during a meeting in which Elijah bragged about how he had just become an equity partner and was still a partner like the rest of them, only a lot richer. To be suspects in Wellbrexa, both have been with Jacobson Moore for at least 10 years. That's a long-ass time to not make partner, particularly in Julian's case when his dad is the managing partner. Given that they have associates working for them, Julian and Olympia almost have to be partners. Maybe the show meant to say they were up for equity partners too. In any case, it seems like a crazy thing to agree to on the spur of the moment. Basically one would give up all the career progress they've made, the money and maybe more because Olympia didn't like a scene with Elijah? I assume that they are loaded with Senior having a lot of cash and having put in a lot of work at Jacobson Moore. But still. 

Re: the COTW, Cousin is sort of crazy to have not said earlier that she had turned the truck over to her friend before it was stolen, and friend was crazy to not have fessed up to protect her pregnant friend. It makes the "don't paint the obvious suspect to create reasonable doubt" position by Cousin more ridiculous than it already is. Seems like neither the D.A. nor the company seem likely to go after Friend. Irv the Unionbuster is pretty piss poor at his job if he's going to bring earbuds (or any stolen merchandise for that matter) into his own apartment. Why didn't anyone think to use the airpods tracking feature earlier? Wouldn't the truck have a GPS inside it for this very reason?

On the romantic subplots, I dislike that Olympia would not come clean and admit that she and Elijah had been together when they were separated. I did kind of wish that Olympia and Julian would work out their issues.

[possibilities]

I really thought I read someplace that the Wellbrexa case would be resolved by the end of the season. If that's so, they'd better get busy solving it, because I feel like they've been dancing in place all season. None of the evidence she's uncovered has actually felt like it advanced anything.

 

[Bastet]

"A 75-year-old woman infiltrates their firm and calls herself Matlock?"  Heh.

I've hated Shae since day one (which, admittedly, may well be because almost all jury consultants annoy the ever-loving fuck out of me in real life), so I greatly enjoyed Matty turning the tables on her and seeing her added to the suspect pool.

Matty taking Olympia out of said pool based on gut is incredibly stupid, but once I decided to stay with this show after a rocky start I vowed to ignore as much as I could the "That's not how any of this works" frustration with the practice of law -- I meant the cases of the week (because, hoo boy), but I'll go ahead and loop this in.  Because:

I continue to love the hell out of Matty and Olympia's relationship, and how it complicates things for Matty now and how it's going to complicate things for Olympia when she finds out.  It's why I'm here.  They're both interesting characters, and the actors are fantastic together.  I got a kick out of them drinking together.  "I think we need a plan -- and maybe some more sweet potato fries."

I did not make any personal promise to not be irritated by continuity errors, so Sarah's food replenishing itself did distract me.  As did Edwin's top button pulling. It may be better for me to watch shows in bed -- even with my glasses on, at that distance I miss a lot of the little things.

[DanaK]

Matty and Edwin continue to show they’re not fully pulling together on this. Edwin is clearly not happy that Matty took Olympia out of the suspect list and sees her as a friend now. I’m kind of loving that the initially sweet smart character we thought we were getting isn’t always thinking straight or 100% sure about her mission. And the same goes with Matty and Edwin’s relationship that we initially assumed was all sweetness and light

[Chicago Redshirt]

5 hours ago, possibilities said:

I really thought I read someplace that the Wellbrexa case would be resolved by the end of the season. If that's so, they'd better get busy solving it, because I feel like they've been dancing in place all season. None of the evidence she's uncovered has actually felt like it advanced anything.

 

If anything, it has taken a step back. It seemed like there was reason to believe thee suspect pool was just 3 people: Senior, Julian and Olympia. Now we have added Shae to the mix because she too worked for Wellbrexa. By extension, any number of people at could have also had a hand in the coverup.

Also, if this were to be approaching reality, there's no reason for it to just be one suspect. Hypothetically, as this episode finally acknowledged, it could be Julian and Senior (say) working together. 

Also, if it is known that Jacobson Moore buried the documents, why does it matter which individual is responsible/more responsible, unless you're going for some sort of criminal charging? The entire entity of Jacobson Moore is responsible for each of its attorneys. 

I hope the writers are capable of some 4-dimensinal chess stuff to make this all pay off.

On another front, I felt compelled to point out how stupid Olympia is for going along with the "only one of us gets to be (equity) partner and the other leaves and starts somewhere else" business. Even putting aside that it's taking money out of your family's pocket (because the income of two (equity) partners is better than one), it assumes that she thinks she is going to win.

Don't know how big the partnership committee might be, but at least two of the votes are presumably Senior (it's his firm) and Elijah (he's an equity partner, as per the pilot). Despite their fraught relationship, does she really think that given a choice between the two of them, Senior is NOT going to pick his boy? Not going to arm-wrestle whatever votes he needs to get his boy to be an equity partner? Being twice as good doesn't always get you half as far, Olympia. You know this. You know Nepo-baby is going to get selected. And then Elijah. You think it will be easy for him to choose you when you broke up with him over nothing, and then had that embarrassing scene where you denied that you ever had a thing with him? 

The only good thing potentially is it sounds like this might lead to a season two where Olympia, Matty, Billy and Sarah are all part of their own firm, which I tend to like the idea of more than this. 

[baldryanr]

7 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I hope the show does have Olympia be the culprit behind Wellbrexa. That would be fabulous and serve Matty right.

I think she'll end up having some involvement, but there's going to be a catch.  The real life optics of making her some amoral scumbag wouldn't work (the successful black woman married the boss's son and is also evil?).  There will be bumps along the way, but unless there's an abrupt cancellation the series will eventually end with Matty and Olympia being on good terms.

[shapeshifter]

I wonder if Shae's superpower will either accidentally or on-purpose assist Mattie in identifying the villain.

[Starchild]

1 hour ago, baldryanr said:

I think she'll end up having some involvement, but there's going to be a catch.  The real life optics of making her some amoral scumbag wouldn't work (the successful black woman married the boss's son and is also evil?).  There will be bumps along the way, but unless there's an abrupt cancellation the series will eventually end with Matty and Olympia being on good terms.

They seem to be suggesting she was young and naive, brand new at the firm back then. It could end up that she was involved but either didn't realize what she was doing, or was extremely pressured.

[Keywestclubkid]

12 hours ago, MerBearHou said:

For these bright attorneys in NYC, I don’t get why Maddie and Olympia often slip into these super-Southern accents.  It is weird and distracting to me.  

when you talk to your friends you don't always talk professionally you talk lose and free .. that's basically what code switching is ... there is"professional" work/out and about speak and "friends" speak ... everyone does this sometimes its super unconscious sometimes its on purpose ..

[nora1992]

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Don't know how big the partnership committee might be, but at least two of the votes are presumably Senior (it's his firm) and Elijah (he's an equity partner, as per the pilot). Despite their fraught relationship, does she really think that given a choice between the two of them, Senior is NOT going to pick his boy? Not going to arm-wrestle whatever votes he needs to get his boy to be an equity partner? Being twice as good doesn't always get you half as far, Olympia. You know this. You know Nepo-baby is going to get selected. And then Elijah. You think it will be easy for him to choose you when you broke up with him over nothing, and then had that embarrassing scene where you denied that you ever had a thing with him? 

The only good thing potentially is it sounds like this might lead to a season two where Olympia, Matty, Billy and Sarah are all part of their own firm, which I tend to like the idea of more than this. 

Wasn’t it in the pilot where Senior tells Olympia that he prefers her to his son?  (I’m paraphrasing here)

This episode tells me Julian will be the big bad.  He fits the profile.

[Starchild]

30 minutes ago, nora1992 said:

Wasn’t it in the pilot where Senior tells Olympia that he prefers her to his son?  (I’m paraphrasing here)

That's how I remember it too

[Chicago Redshirt]

15 minutes ago, nora1992 said:

Wasn’t it in the pilot where Senior tells Olympia that he prefers her to his son?  (I’m paraphrasing here)

This episode tells me Julian will be the big bad.  He fits the profile.

I think there's a difference between saying that in the abstract and a concrete choice. We haven't actually seen much of Senior (Hell, I don't think we actually have been shown/told his actual first or last name, even.) but I think that when push comes to shove, he'll pick blood every time.

[babyrambo]

I like Matty’s and Olympia’s relationship so much—their drinking scenes were super fun—but Matty’s gut instinct about Olympia is definitely going to come back to bite. 

And having Olympia be involved, whatever the reason, is more narratively interesting than having Matty’s friend be the good guy. I love their friendly dynamic but seeing their messy fallout after the reveal is one of the things I’m most looking forward to, once everything comes to light. 

Like it did with Shae. She’d popped up enough that I expected it, but having since come around to Julian & Olympia as a couple, I really wish they’d never gone there. She’s become a lot more relevant than I thought she’d be in the beginning, with her now being a suspect, but I hope she doesn’t become a main character; her schtick is already a lot. 

I also think that by the end, this undercover ruse is going to have a much more negative impact on Matty’s marriage than she thought. They’re already straining under the weight of the deception and Edwin seems extra fed up every week. Maybe they won’t divorce, but I can see things deeply unravelling, especially if they don’t get the answers they’re hoping for. 

Edited Yest. at 06:43 PM by babyrambo

[possibilities]

I don't know what kind of show it is yet, and I think that will determine how the fallout washes.

If it's a feel good show, Olympia will in fact be innocent, she and Maddy will stay friends, Olympia will forgive Maddy for deceiving her all this time for the greater cause of catching the ne'er do wells in the firm, and the bad guys will be vanquished. All forgiven!

If it's the kind of show that likes to twist the knife, Maddy will be wrong to have exonerated Olympia in her mind, Olympia will feel betrayed about the deception, Edwin will be proved right about the way to parent the kid and about Maddy taking too many risks and going off hunches without evidence, everything falls apart for everyone, and the whole show blows up all the feel good vibes by the finale.

It might be somewhere in between, but tv usually isn't.

This episode did have a suspect who declared herself and her friend innocent, and it turned out to be true despite the way the evidence was looking for most of the episode. That is either a way to confuse Maddy about Olympia, or it was a hint to the audience that Maddy is right to decide Olympia is innocent. 

What bothers me right now is that if Maddy is right, Edwin is wrong, and I was liking their marriage. I don't want to see that be blown up. 

I liked Olympia's and Julian's marriage reconciliation, too, though, and they seem to have blown that up, so I guess the show is willing to wreck things I like.

I do think that Olympia, Maddy, Sarah, and Other Junior Lawyer Guy breaking off to start their own firm-- and having them act as rivals to Julian and his Dad and Elliot and Shae is the kind of thing TV does sometimes, so I guess it could happen.

I don't think I want to make any actual predictions at ths point.

[Chicago Redshirt]

I'm wondering if it is possible the twins will be transferring to Alfie's school, creating a fresh risk of Matty being discovered when Olympia picks up the kids at Fancy-lads-and-ladies Private School and sees the supposedly-struggling for money Madeline Matlock there, plus people refer to her as "Kingston" for some reason. 

[andromeda331]

I was wondering if that was the school Alfie went too. 

The Cousin was an idiot for not telling her lawyer that someone else drove the truck. The union buster was an idiot for taking the earbuds. Also, why didn't the truck have GPS. I'd assume they all would so the company can track it. The manager is also an idiot for "supervising" the second cleaning of the locker. 

I love Olympia and Matty's friendship and getting drunk at the bar. Then later deciding to go make a plan and get sweet potato fries.

I don't like Olympia deciding that either she or Jason should leave the firm. It's his dad's firm. Even if he hates his son he probably still wants it to go to him. 

Edwin has a point Olympia could still have done it. What ever happened with that Pharma seemed to effected her. 

I'm still not sure how this is going to play out when it finally comes out that Matty lied.

[Driad]

The "previously" mentioned a pen that somehow had information on it.  What was that?  I don't remember it, although I have seen all the episodes.

[Bastet]

21 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

I was wondering if that was the school Alfie went too.

I wondered about that when Olympia and Julian first started talking about switching schools, and we've heard the name of the school they just interviewed with, but not the name of the school Alfie goes to, so that's definitely on the table as an upcoming "Will this be how she gets caught?" scene.  (I doubt it, but it could be a close call, and then angst that now Matty can't go to any of his school events or even pick him up, only Edwin.)

13 minutes ago, Driad said:

The "previously" mentioned a pen that somehow had information on it.  What was that?  I don't remember it, although I have seen all the episodes.

It's the recording device Matty planted in Julian's office -- it's also a pen, and she had it in her hand when she knocked over his pens, so she could add it to the collection when she put them back.

Edited 19 hours ago by Bastet

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, possibilities said:

If it's a feel good show, Olympia will in fact be innocent, she and Maddy will stay friends, Olympia will forgive Maddy for deceiving her all this time for the greater cause of catching the ne'er do wells in the firm, and the bad guys will be vanquished. All forgiven!

If it's the kind of show that likes to twist the knife, Maddy will be wrong to have exonerated Olympia in her mind, Olympia will feel betrayed about the deception, Edwin will be proved right about the way to parent the kid and about Maddy taking too many risks and going off hunches without evidence, everything falls apart for everyone, and the whole show blows up all the feel good vibes by the finale.

It might be somewhere in between, but tv usually isn't.

An in-between denouement, could evolve from these developments:

2 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I don't like Olympia deciding that either she or Jason should leave the firm. It's his dad's firm. Even if he hates his son he probably still wants it to go to him. 

Edwin has a point Olympia could still have done it. What ever happened with that Pharma seemed to effected her. 

I'm still not sure how this is going to play out when it finally comes out that Matty lied.

Like:
It turns out Olympia was instrumental in hiding the lethal effects of the drug, but she wasn't the orchestrator of the coverup, so Mattie forgives her, especially if Olympia starts her own firm and wants to make Jacobson Moore pay — perhaps millions or billions for drug treatment facilities.
And Olympia "forgives" Mattie because it was all for good.

[Irlandesa]

3 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I don't like Olympia deciding that either she or Jason should leave the firm. It's his dad's firm. Even if he hates his son he probably still wants it to go to him.

Especially since she just learned about the affair.  It benefits both of them to try and find a way to work together.  They already managed to navigate an almost divorce, they probably could figure out a way to handle a working relationship even with this new information.

I could see the finale being a surprise like Olympia wins the equity partnership showdown but she looks suspicious at the end of being guilty and/or Julian discovers Matty's lies. 

8 hours ago, possibilities said:

I liked Olympia's and Julian's marriage reconciliation, too, though, and they seem to have blown that up, so I guess the show is willing to wreck things I like.

I'll admit that I'm starting to get a bit nervous about the overarching plot.  Reconciling Olympia and Julian just to break them up again doesn't make much sense.  Finding out about the affair itself could have been enough to stir up bad emotions.

The "hidden piece of paper" was always a flimsy conspiracy.  Even if she figures out who did it, I'd imagine the consequences would be limited.  She talks about something being illegal but I don't think many lawyers are jailed for hiding evidence.  And I don't know why Edwin thinks Matty will go to jail if she's caught.

It makes me wonder if they're building to something actually worth building to. 

[mythoughtis]

I think Olympia is definitely part of the cover-up.  I think she feels guilty about it and that’s why she does a lot of pro-bono cases.  They haven’t mentioned that lately, but the amount she does was a big deal in the earlier episodes. 

[Boofish]

I agree with Maddie. I trust Olympia. 

[schnauzergirl]

In the episode when Alfie was going off to his debate event, a school bus from Westchester County was parked nearby.  I assumed Julian and Olympia lived in NYC so the twins would be enrolled in a school in the city.  My geography may be faulty, but don't Maddy and Edwin live outside NYC?

[Cotypubby]

39 minutes ago, schnauzergirl said:

My geography may be faulty, but don't Maddy and Edwin live outside NYC?

Yeah they have a big house somewhere.

I wasn’t really feeling this episode. Olympia is a hypocrit and she was having an affair with Elijah. She’s so self-righteous all of the time. It was so outrageous for her to tell Julian to quit the firm when it’s his fathers company.

I really hope the writers are leading to something where Olympia was involved with the Welbrexa coverup, and Maddie realizes she does need to rely on facts and evidence and not just feelings, because otherwise the show is turning into the same old tired standard of all the white guys are the eeeeeevil villains and all the black women are pure and innocent.